Artist Diploma Studies Culminate in Organ Performance by Aymeric Dupré la Tour with Colleagues, on Thursday, May 4, 5:30 P.M. in Fairchild Chapel By Michael Chipman
	THE PROGRAM Antiphon Zelus domus tuae (plainchant sung by vocal ensemble) Psalm 68 Salvum me fac Deus (organ) This Psalm appears under the title "Ich bydde .V. Helpt mij o God, den 69 sallem" in The Susanne van Soldt Manuscript (1599) Psalm 69 Deus in adjutorium meum intende (organ) Setting by Johannes Fischer (b. Poland 1550) Ex libris Johannis Fischeri Borussi Morungensis /Katalog XIV 13. a /Liber Secundus/Kunstlich Tablatur Buch (1595) Psalm 70 In te Domine speravi (organ) This Psalm appears in a Fantasie by Heinrich Scheidemann under the title "Ich dich hab ich gehoffet, Herr" in "Die Luneburgerorgeltablatur KN 208 (1630-1670) Antiphon Deus meus! Eripe me Verset Advertantur retrorsum Début des Leçons de Ténèbres (1714) by François Couperin Incipit lamentationis Jeremiae Leçon I Aleph Responsorium by Antonio Porta In monte Olivettti Leçon II Vau Responsorium Tristis est anima mea Leçon III Jod Responsorium Ecce vidimus eum ARTISTS Aymeric Dupré la Tour, organ Malia Bendi Merad, soprano Erika Tolano, soprano Daniel Weiss, gamba Vocal Ensemble: Adriana Lopez-Young Shauna Jones Brooke Randolph Alexander Clay Noah Miller		Aymeric Dupré la Tour, a second year artist diploma organ major from Paris, France, and student of Haskell Thomson, professor of organ and director of the keyboard division, will perform a sampling of settings of the liturgy of the First Nocturne of the Matins of Maundy at Thursday, also known as the Lessons Tenebrae, on Thursday, May 4, 5:30 p.m. in Fairchild Chapel. He will be joined by sopranos Malia Bendi Merad, a first-year voice major from Paris, France, and Erika Tolano, a second-year artist diploma voice major from Melbourne, Australia, and viola da gambist Daniel Daughtry-Weiss. This performance, free and open to the public, is the culminating project of Dupré la Tour's Artist Diploma program. The Brombaugh instrument in Fairchild Chapel, based on organ-building principles of the early 17th century Dupré la Tour first envisioned this project while attending the Summer Academy of Baroque Performance at Saint Bertrand de Comminges. "I heard a musicologist explain the special character of the Lesson Tenebrae, that it was designed to be sung by nuns who were trained to ornament the melody and the emotional texts," says Dupré la Tour. "It does not have the same effect as an opera aria -- it is a more subtle effect. It may be one of the most emotional texts of the church liturgy." Dupré la Tour took the text of the liturgy surrounding the Matins of Maundy at Thursday as a common theme and drew upon several different musical settings of those texts to create this program. "I read the Psalms that are part of the liturgy of the Matins, which talk about the despair, loneliness, abandonment and rejection, and then call God for help," says Dupré la Tour. "This crying out in the psalms, the lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet and the words of Christ are very intense, so I thought it would be great to sample the music that had been inspired by those words and texts." The concert is performed on four layers, says Dupré La Tour: First, the texts themselves. Second, the chant of the antiphons to be sung before and after psalm settings for organ, drawn from the Renaissance period. The third layer is the Baroque singing and ornamentation, which expresses the text in very subtle ways, sustained by a rich, often tortured and dissonant harmony, in music by Couperin. Fourth, the contrapuntal polyphony by Antonio Porta who set the responsories to be sung by a small choral ensemble, and Adriana Lopez-Young, a junior from Costa Mesa, California. "What I tried to do," says Dupré la Tour, "is to take every element of the liturgy of the texts and look for musical settings so each section is a musical dialogue. The experimental nature of the project lies in that the responsories are music of the Renaissance that has nothing to do with the baroque, contrasted with Baroque sections. It should be very impressive -- a sort of back and forth travel through time."
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